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Sir Presley finished his wine and glanced at Grigory. Slightly red in the face, the professor hurriedly emptied his own glass, and the two men stood.
“I believe we will retire now.” Presley cleared his throat. “Good night, your majesty, Sir Alfred.”
Grigory, ducking his head shyly, murmured a few words of parting, as well. Then they left the room together.
“Poor Grigory,” sighed the queen. “He should know there is no reason to be embarrassed around us.” She finished her own wine and set the glass on the table. “Would you mind if we called it a night, Sir Alfred? I would like to return to the nursery.”
“Of course not, your majesty,” he answered finishing his own wine and rising. Naturally, the queen wished to visit her children rather than stay with him alone in her sitting room. Before Presley and Grigory, Earl Lawrence had left half an hour earlier. He had said he wanted to “check on some things around the castle,” but Alfred suspected he was going down to visit his wife’s tomb under the chapel again.
Nobody had said, “We don’t know if we will still be alive this time tomorrow,” but they surely must have been thinking it. Alfred was thinking it. Indeed, he had a hard time thinking of anything else, now that all the plans were finished and all the troops were in place. There was nothing else to distract his mind from the terrible finality of the coming battle.
Except, of course, for Elwyn. He hadn’t seen her all day. Initially, that had been by accident; he had gone to breakfast much earlier than usual, and he had taken his lunch out on the front lines with the men. Once he had returned to the Bocburg, however, he could easily have gone to visit her. But he hadn’t. For some reason that now eluded him, he had made it a point of pride not to do it. He had said to himself, “If she wants to see me, then by Finster she can come find me. Why should I go to her?”
Now, however, faced with a long, sleepless night worrying about what would happen tomorrow, he suddenly felt as if his pride didn’t matter quite so much. Grigory and Presley were going to spend the night in each other’s arms, because they loved each other and they didn’t know if they would ever have the chance again. Why shouldn’t he go see Elwyn? He loved her, didn’t he? He was fairly certain he did, in spite of the fact that she sometimes infuriated him. Or maybe that was part of why he loved her. It was all a little confusing, even now.
He left the sitting room with the queen, and they walked together toward the nursery, where they said goodnight. He paused before the still open door and heard the queen’s voice, low and reassuring, but could not make out her exact words. Presumably she was talking to Edwin and Alice, comforting them. Sticking to the quiet shadows, Alfred hurried on and knocked at Elwyn’s door.
“Yes, what is it?” Her voice sounded sharp and matter-of-fact. She wasn’t exactly in a romantic mood, then, he guessed. “Come in.”
“Um...it’s me,” he said, looking in.
She was sitting on a wooden stool in front of a mirror, braiding her hair up. A white gold crown sat on the table in front of her, along with a short sword and two hunting knives. She had on a long coat of mail, belted tightly with a blue sash, over a dark blue riding dress and a quilted gambeson. Her bow and two quivers of arrows leaned against the table.
“You certainly look ready for battle,” he said.
“Oh?”
She looked at him in the mirror with a raised eyebrow, as if daring him to laugh or even smile. He did not.
Apparently satisfied that he was not mocking her, she relaxed. “I’m going to stay with Edwin tomorrow. Anywhere he goes, I’ll be with him. No matter what happens, I’m going to look after him.”
“Good. At the council earlier today, we discussed how to get the king out of here if the battle goes poorly.” Not exactly a romantic topic of conversation, but she needed to know.
“Yes, my stepmother told me to pack a bag and be ready to leave. I was about to start working on that. Just so everyone understands I’m not leaving Edwin’s side, no matter what.”
“Naturally.”
She picked up the crown and put it on, turning her head from side to side. “This was my mother’s. My real mother’s, I mean.”
Her real mother—Princess Leofled, first wife of King Edgar. She had died in childbirth, just as poor Lady Veronica had. She was the first of many losses Elwyn had suffered. Alfred could see how much the crown meant to her.
“It’s beautiful.” He reached out and tentatively rested his fingertips on her shoulder.
At first, she raised her hand, as if to touch his, but then she stood abruptly and turned to face him. “If we have to leave, I want you to come with us, too.”
“I’ll have to stay and command the army.”
“No.” Her lower lip trembled. “No, leave that to my Uncle Lawrence. You have to stay safe.”
“Because the queen has plans for me?”
“No, you fool. Because I love you.” She put her hands on his chest and went up on her toes to kiss him.
“I love you, too,” he said, not wanting to break the kiss, but needing to say the words. They tumbled out so fast he wasn’t sure he had said it correctly, so he repeated himself, more slowly this time. “I love you, too.”
She threw her arms tightly around his neck, and he could hear a slight sniffling against his shoulder. “I thought for sure I had scared you off.”
In truth, she almost had, but at that moment, he couldn’t remember why. All that mattered was that she really did love him. That singular miracle was more important than anything else in the world, even the battle and the safety of the king.
“If you have to leave,” he said, “then I promise I will come find you as soon as I can.”
“And I promise to give you the best homecoming ever.” She kissed him again, and then she reached down and started unlacing his trousers.
Neither of them felt like taking the time to remove their clothes. She pulled up the mail coat and her skirt and sat on the edge of the table, while he braced himself with his hands on the frame of her mirror. The table and her jewelry box rattled and shook, and he was honestly worried they might break the mirror. Her crown slipped askew, and she had to take it off, and her hair came down from its braids and hung loose in her face.
For a minute after he finished, she would not let him go, wrapping her arms and legs tightly around him and pulling him in close, so his face rested in her dark hair.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you, and I want to marry you.”
At this, he broke her grip and stood up straight so he could look her in the eye. “Are you serious?”
“Perfectly serious.” She was smiling, but she had tears in her eyes, too. “I don’t know why I didn’t say ‘yes’ the second you asked. I’ve been such an idiot, and you’ve been so patient.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, and it really did seem as if all that wait and worry had been of little importance. In the end, she had gotten to the right answer, and that was all that mattered.
She turned on the table and rummaged in her jewelry box. Then she pulled out two gold rings set with rubies, one much larger than the other. Blushing shyly, she held out the larger ring to him. “This was my father’s.”
Awestruck, he took the ring and turned it over in his hand. There was an inscription inside that said, “Edgar S.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Of course I’m sure.” She held up the smaller ring and slipped it on her finger. It fit perfectly. “This one was my mother’s. Go ahead. Try it on.”
It was a bit too large for his ring finger, but it fit fine on the middle finger of his right hand.
“There,” she said. “Now we’re really betrothed.”
“I think technically we still need to—”
“Fuck technicalities, Alfred. You’re my fiancé now. In fact, I feel like you’re pretty much my husband, already. My old governess, Lady Henderson, used to tell me that if a girl did what we just did, then she was ‘married in the sight of Earstien.’ I used to think that sounded stupid, but now I find the idea strangely appealing.”
She took his hand and examined the ring closely. She said they could summon a jeweler and have it resized. Alfred laughed and said he thought it could probably wait until after the battle.
“Oh, I suppose so,” she said, putting her hand next to his so the rings touched. “We’ll have plenty of time then. We have the whole rest of our lives to do whatever we want. For tonight, there are much better things we could be doing.”
He grinned. “Oh, like what?”
“Help me out of these clothes, and I’ll show you.”
Once they were both undressed, they went to her bed, where she proved to be both wildly inventive and remarkably flexible. She would have kept him awake all night, in fact, if he hadn’t eventually reminded her that he really did need to get some sleep.
“Oh, fine, then,” she pouted. “But you’re going to sleep here, with me.”
He was about to object that this would be improper, but then he realized he didn’t care. And in any case, the people who might worry most about Elwyn’s reputation, like Queen Rohesia, wouldn’t mind in the slightest that she had spent the night with him. So he lay back down with her, and they curled up together naked under the covers.
As he was about to finally drift off to sleep, she whispered, “Are you happy?”
“Yes, I am. Very happy.”
She kissed his shoulder. “That’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to make anyone happy before. There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.”